Following 9000 Pas (2015) and Songlines (2018), Belgian choreographer of Australian origin Joanne Leighton completes, with People United, a trilogy dedicated to universal movements.

Taken from Gil Scott-Heron’s poem The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which became a rallying cry for protest movements in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, this passage encapsulates the central aim of People United: to give expression to our shared humanity.

Since 2011, Joanne Leighton has been collecting photographs centred on the notion of gathering, creating what she describes as a true “universal atlas of the collective.” Spanning celebrations and protests, and crossing geographical and cultural boundaries, this archive of more than a thousand images forms the point of departure for People United.

Gatherings give rise to collective, universal gestures that are passed on from one generation to the next. Joanne Leighton takes this raw material as her starting point to explore what binds us together. How can the “non-performative” movement captured in a photograph be translated into choreographic gesture?

The piece opens with frozen movements, like snapshots of collective gatherings: a “portrait of communion” in which the dancers stand with their backs to the audience, arms interlocked. Some gestures are immediately recognizable, such as the raised fist recalling John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, or the kneeling posture associated with American football players Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid. Set against Peter Crosbie’s sonic landscapes woven from brass bands, speeches, and songs of celebration the group repeatedly enacts these familiar gestures, creating what Joanne Leighton describes as “a shifting cartography of visual knowledge.”

With People United, Joanne Leighton uncovers a “shared physical language,” reactivating the universal gestures that connect us and form the very foundation of our humanity.